A Birthday Surprise!

My husband, Matthew's birthday was coming up and I wanted to do something special for him, however, he is (a) very difficult to buy for and (b) more difficult to surprise. I am happy to report that this year I was successful in planning something without him finding out. Even more wonderful is the fact that Amelia kept the surprise for an entire week too - very impressive for a four year old - it was so great to see her excitement as we talked about it together.

I reserved a condo in Neskowin, on the Oregon Coast, for the weekend from a friend/colleague. I then made a "candy board", using candy to write our surprise message for Matthew. Then on Friday, I left work and picked Amelia up early, went to buy balloons (she chose a fantastic spiderman balloon for her super hero dad), and then we went home to wait for him.

When he arrived home, Amelia was stood by the sign and balloons shouting "surprise dadda!", finally Matthew went over and read the board. He didn't seem super excited at first, but I suppose he had just driven all the way back from the coast, since that's his area of work...as much as I tried to hint that he should stay local that day he didn't...and I couldn't tell him could I?) Anyway once he realized that I was serious and had already packed everybody's belongings, off we went to Neskowin.

It was later and dark when we arrived at the condo, so we couldn't see the view outside our window. We told Amelia that the ocean was right outside and opened the door so that she could hear it. At 3:30 am the next morning, she was in our bedroom, asking to go out and walk on the beach by the ocean, she was not impressed when we told her to go back to sleep since it was still the middle of the night. Eventually she did as we asked and slept until around 7:00 am. We all got up and Amelia finally got to see the fabulous view outside our window. Of course, we immediately headed out for an early morning walk on the beach, bed-head and all.

It was a little chilly, but not too bad, we brought along a bucket just in case we found any cool shells.

The waves were rather choppy...

But as the morning went on, it got a lot brighter and warmed up nicely.

Our view from the condo was fantastic, as you can see.

We got ready and went out for breakfast at "The Loving Spoonful". Next we went shopping, finding some great bargains at the local outlet stores. After stopping at the beach in Lincoln City, it was time to head back to the condo for the evening.

The condo was bright and full of sunshine when we arrived back, the sun had just begun to set and it was a just beautiful.

Amelia had the best seat in the house as she sat on the window seat for dinner, what a great idea!

By the way, this is proposal rock, how wonderful that it was right outside our window.

After the sun had set, Amelia and I played Jenga, while daddy had some quiet time (watching TV in his room), after all it was his birthday weekend and he was entitled to some R&R. After she went to bed, Matthew and I watched a movie, the condo really had everything anyone could want.

The next morning, it was just as glorious as could be and I hardly wanted to leave.

But as the saying goes "all good things must come to an end".

It was a fantastic weekend, a little break our family was truly in need of.

I cannot wait to go back!

Oh and of course the best part..."gotcha Matthew! Hope you enjoyed your birthday surprise."